Why Do We Fear Staying Present?
“Memento Mori” - Remember you are mortal.
Why is it that we live life as though we’re not going to die or rather as though we’ve forgotten our finite mortality? We get caught up in the everyday hustle and there are those who become consumed by the obsolete, the unnecessary or the mundane things in life as though they are the most important. It’s as if we have fallen under the dangerous assumption that we have superfluous time on earth and we won’t miss the time we wasted. We torture ourselves with self-ridicule, and unfair comparisons, with an excess of unrealistic expectations on ourselves and others. We quickly get caught in a vicious trap where we believe our career makes us who we are. As though the title we are given determines the value we hold in life. We commit ourselves to late nights and early mornings, to constant insistent thoughts resulting in steadily mounting stress all to move up the ladder. And then, either we, or someone we love, falls ill or experiences a brush with death or worse. At which point this façade that we’ve delicately held together is shattered. The vail is dropped and we are abruptly thrusted into reality.
When you read the first paragraph where does your mind take you — what do you think about? I asked a few friends and each of them said “I think of family. Leaving my job and travelling. Quitting and pursuing what I love.” No one says, doubling down on work, yet, that is often our default move when our “purpose” hasn’t been challenged by life itself. For the large majority of us, we place our life’s purpose on our job but it’s not until we experience a glimpse of the finality of life that our purpose undergoes an immediate evaluation and we learn to live in the present.
Henry David Thoreau reminds us,
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each month. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”
I suspect that if we were to live in the present and distance ourselves from the road of pursuit we’d find more contentment in life. We’d reorganise what’s important and acknowledge our limited time and use it sparingly. But I believe there is something about living in the present that deeply frightens us. What is the source of that fear?
David Klein highlights two reasons for this fear. One could be that we live in perpetual terror of being disappointed by our lives, indeed, by life itself. We know intuitively that life in the here-and-now is life’s ultimate — life cannot get any realer than right now. But I suspect that many of us find the here-and-now seriously lacking. What if this deficiency quietly prompts us to confront a very real question of “Is this all there is?” What do we do if we find our reality uninspiring, or worse, hard, unfair and painful? We deal with this fear of existential disappointment by pre-emptively striking the “present” life by running from the here-and-now and imagining something different, by adjusting our view on reality to focus on the future, past or an imagined alternative reality.
Another reason we struggle to live in the present is that it is laced with constant reminders of our mortality. Consciously or not, we become profoundly aware of the unstoppable progression of life itself. Time slips by and change is never ending. We experience surreal moment of enlightenment through simple events — but, we ultimately recognise that these moments are fleeting. As we experience the withdrawals of these moments of bliss we are rudely confronted with the fact that the sum of the here-and-now moments will reach an end and then we will be no more. The acknowledgement of this truism is always present for us to accept but we are much better at running from, or blatantly ignoring, this truth. We consume, we binge, we abuse; we spend, we waste, we want but life is more than that. We don’t need to cross swords with death to appreciate that, but we inevitably will.
I believe there is value in familiarising ourselves with the stoic perspective on death. One can ask, “Why do I want to think about what I don’t want to happen? It’s scary, unpleasant and sad.” The stoics believed this view was misguided and by embracing death, one can adopt a view which brings forth great insights, breakthrough and wisdom. A pithy that was coined and kept front of mind by ancient Stoics is “Memento Mori: Remember you are mortal.” Embracing death doesn’t mean you pull a dark cloud over your view on life rather, acknowledging its presence allows you to create priorities and adopt thinking which gives you perspective — so you can focus on what’s important. I believe there is great benefit in this acquaintance, although gloomy at first, it will enable you to quieten the internal chaos and sporadic actions to extend our lives through writing a book, producing art, putting our name on a building. These acts of immortality projects are by-products of what Ernest Becker, psychotherapist, dubbed “Death Terror” a deep existential anxiety that underlies everything we think or do.
If we can adjust our focus ahead of time, and learn to remain present, I suspect we’d better cope with acknowledging the finite time we have, prioritise appropriately and appreciate our mortality with a sense of calm that can be found in those beautiful yet fleeting moments of bliss. Let Marcus Aurelius’ words provide us with an important reminder:
“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
Follow Thoughts and Ideas on Facebook: facebook.com/thoughtsandideas1
